Growing Pains
by giraffespine
Summary: Stumbling towards adulthood isn't easy for Angela Shepard— fortunately, she'll always have her brother to put her head back on straight. Warning: spanking, drug/alcohol abuse.
1. Mother's Little Helper

When I pushed open the front door— exhausted from another day of school, another day spent arguing with my shit-for-brains husband about who was going to pay the bills— the only thing I wanted was a little yellow pill, preferably washed down with a beer. I needed it. I _needed_ it.

Finding Tim seated at my kitchen table put a bit of a damper on that plan— if looks could kill, his would've crucified me as I strode over to him. "The hell are you doin' here?" I demanded, throwing my backpack aside. "You climb in through the window or something?" I was a little worried about my husband finding him— he didn't much like having Tim around— though in retrospect, I really should've been more worried about my brother.

"I was at Ma's place just now," he started all-too-casually, "and the whole time I was there, I had to listen to her bitchin' about her pills goin' missing. Now, I didn't want to believe it, but I figured she ain't old enough for dementia and they can't have vanished into thin air— so I came here and had a look in your medicine cabinet." With a loud bang, he slammed the bottles down onto the table. "You wanna explain this one, Angela? And I'm waitin' for a pretty damn good explanation."

I could already tell that yelling at him for rooting through my cabinet was not going to bode well for me. "They're prescription," I countered instead. "From a doctor. What's the problem?"

"Funny, I didn't realize you'd changed your name to Elizabeth Shepard," he snapped. "Or Linda Jones. Or Mary Worth. You rob a pharmacy for these?"

"My _husband's_ friends got me it," I said, making sure to emphasize that I was a full-grown woman with a _husband_ , now— far too old to be told off by my brother like a child. "And it's really none of your damn business 'bout what I take—"

"It's none of my damn business?" he hissed, and I realized that that might've been the wrong thing to say, but I was just too irritated to care. "It's none of my damn business when you're popping fucking Valium like it's candy? You have any idea how dependent you can get on this shit?— no, you do have every idea, you grew up with Ma, too. What the hell would you do if you overdosed?" He was practically vibrating with fury at this point. "You've really crossed the line this time, little sister— I don't think you've _ever_ done anything this stupid."

"Don't you dare compare me to Ma," I spat, trembling; Ma, who blew rent money on her latest hit and was usually too high to remember to feed us. "Don't you _dare_. I just need to get away, goddammit, and you don't have no fuckin' right to come into my house and give me shit for how I deal."

"You wanted to get caught," he said, now dangerously calm. "I know you did. You put all these damn bottles right at the front of the cabinet, where I could've found them lookin' for aspirin, and you stole them from _Ma_ , of all people. Well, you don't have to worry no more, 'cause I can tell you're outta control, and I'm here now to give you the lickin' of a lifetime."

He wasn't serious. He couldn't be serious. (I turned off the part of my brain that was secretly happy about my big brother stepping in and fixing things. It was full of shit.) "I'm seventeen, Tim. Fucking seventeen. I'm too old for a spanking."

"You're right, you're too old for it, which is why this had better be the last one," he said firmly. "You've lost your goddamn head, and I'm screwin' it back on for you, whether you like it or not."

"You'd think after gettin' hitched—"

"Would you drop this 'married woman' bull?" Tim cut off. "You're a little girl playin' house, for Chrissakes— you're still livin' with this jackass, though you ain't pregnant no more. You don't even got one good justification for these pills, other than 'I wanted to' and 'I'm all grown up now'."

He reached over to tilt my chin up, and I glared at him, still unwilling to budge an inch. "I don't give a shit about how old you are, or where you live, or what kind of right you think you have to destroy yourself— you're gonna be in the exact same position, every time, no matter how long it takes for you to get the message. You could end up addicted or in the morgue because of this, and I'll be dead myself before I sit back and let that happen."

"You don't need to whale on me," I declared, feeling stupid and young, not half as confident as I'd been. "I ain't a kid, I get it already. I'll pitch them."

"You know, funnily enough, yellin' at you never seemed to do much— you just tuned me out. And when you were grounded, you just skipped on out the door as you pleased. But one thing— bein' over my knee— always did make a difference. Maybe you couldn't ignore it half as easily." He pierced me with a hard stare. "You obviously don't get it, else you wouldn't still be arguin' with me— which is fine, 'cause your ass is gonna find out just how serious this little stunt was in a minute."

It was somewhat comforting to me that no matter how hard I pushed, no matter how hard I tried to reach the point where Tim just gave up, I always failed— though it wasn't particularly comforting at that moment to know that he was beyond being swayed. "Fine," I said, too exhausted and irritable to keep whining. Maybe he was too damn sick of wrangling with me to dole out more than a few token swats. If my sister were a crazy fuckup who got high in the school bathroom just to make it through English lit, I'd be damn sick of her, too.

"Hey," he said, putting an arm around my shoulders, "I love you, all right? You've been scaring the hell outta me lately, even more with the pills than with your drinking— and if this is how I have to get through to you, I will, though I fuckin' hate it."

Well, he didn't have to goddamn do it if he hated it so much, did he? "You gonna use a belt, or no?" I asked, just to be sure, trying to make my voice sound cockier than I felt.

"You're still a scrawny little girl," he said scornfully. "I don't need a belt to make sure you remember this." He pulled out his chair and gestured towards his lap, and I threw myself onto it, cringing at how childish I felt— at how many memories I had of past punishments given by him, the view of the carpet, the awful anticipation before the first smack.

"I'll keep this short and sweet. No-more-Valium. It's all goin' in the trash, and I don't want to hear a single argument— you haven't been prescribed it, and you don't need to be takin' any. And the next time you feel this miserable, you _talk_ to me, or anyone, instead of turnin' to the benzos. I'll say this as long as you need to hear it— your safety ain't negotiable, period."

Having said his piece, he brought his hand down hard enough to make me howl— or it would've made me howl, but I bit down on my lip and stubbornly refused to cry out, an unprecedented occurence when Tim licked me. I didn't _want_ to have to give them up, it wasn't _fair_ , and I wasn't a dumb kid to bawl over his knee— I _wasn't_.

Five or six swats later, I was gritting my teeth, tears glistening in the corners of my eyes as I kept trying to distract myself from the position I was in— what I'd done to earn it. And of course, Tim noticed. "Whenever you want to stop pretendin' you couldn't care less is fine by me," he said, landing a particularly hard blow near my thighs, '''cause I don't know who the hell you're trying to fool acting tough. Maybe you could think about me finding your body on the ground— that's what's goin' through _my_ head."

It was so goddamn useless to try to keep my pride around Tim, who never stopped swinging until it was in pieces. He cracked his palm down over and over, and as the ache in my backside crested into a harsher burn, I found that I could no more restrain my sobs than I could restrain my heartbeat. I couldn't ignore this. I _couldn't_ ignore this. I couldn't ignore the fact that my brother had to do this, fucking again, because I'd done something asinine, fucking again— something that could've killed me, though I'd never really considered that before today. "I'm sorry," I managed to say, breathing hard through tears and snot. "I didn't— I'm _sorry_."

"I'm glad you're sorry," he said, "but that just ain't good enough this time. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you, and you came so close to croakin' it's not even funny." The pain was building up awfully, and now I could barely distinguish where one swat started and the other ended— it was just one big hurt. "You could've had a heart attack, choked on your own vomit, _actually_ lost your damn mind— never again. You're _never_ doin' this again."

I was starting to feel like even the sweet numbness of the benzos wasn't worth this price. Not only was my ass on fire, not only was I bawling over Tim's lap the way I did when I was ten, but I could practically feel the terror and sheer disappointment in every strike. Finally, once I had stopped struggling and just hung limp, sobbing for all I was worth, it was done— though I didn't realize that for a few seconds until he ran his hand down my back. "I hope you learned something," he said, his voice far more gentle now. "I really, _really_ hope you learned something, princess, 'cause I sure as hell don't want to teach a repeat."

Slowly, catching my breath, I stood up— and at the sight of his stricken face, I flung myself into his arms. I'd expected to still be angry that he'd punished me like a child, but all I wanted was reassurance that he wasn't mad anymore.

There were a million apologies spilling from my mouth, probably unintelligible, and he shushed all of them. I clambered onto his lap, not caring how babyish it was, and relished the feeling of his strong arms around me as I buried my face into his neck— this was the safest place in the world for me, always. "I didn't know it was so dangerous, I swear," I hiccupped. "I just wanted to get high, and drinking wasn't working, and—"

"I believe you," he murmured. "Tell me the truth— is it that bad here? Really that damn bad?"

I nodded miserably. "He don't hit me or nothin', he just ain't never home sober, he says he didn't ever love me—"

"Then he's a fuckin' idiot, Angel," he said, stroking my hair. "Listen... I think you oughta come and live with me for a while, at least 'til you graduate. Your husband ain't keepin' any kind of eye on you, and I doubt being around this mess has been good for your schoolwork. Obviously it hasn't been good for your health."

My schoolwork was a goddamn nightmare, and I wasn't looking forward to explaining that to him— but moving out of this shithole and into Tim's place sounded like a dream come true. "I'll go," I muttered, feeling sleepy and drained. "Don't wanna stay here no more."

"I figured you'd rather be with your favorite brother than that dipstick," he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. "You better get ready for an eight o'clock bedtime and vegetables at every meal, though, little sister. It's the straight and narrow for you from now on."

"The only vegetable you got over at your place is grass," I shot back without heat. Awfully cocky of him to think that he was still my favorite brother, even after tanning my hide— but I guess he knew that that'd always be his rank.


	2. Out All Night

_*whistles* ... It's certainly been a while! I managed to forget the email I used for this account and the password (I know, I'm a genius), and trying to make a coherent narrative out of this mess I write with my girlfriend can be like pulling teeth, but I'm back for good— I have a lot of this stuff written, so hopefully you guys enjoy a flashback to younger, even brattier Angela :)_

* * *

Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.

I was pacing around my room, practically vibrating from anger with every step. Tim had told me to sit on my bed and think about what I'd done— like hell I would. He'd always been overprotective, but this was _it_. What'd he expect I'd do after he ordered me to break up with John, other than go out and have some fun for a few days? So we'd been drinking and he was older than me, big deal. He had no goddamn right to bring me back to our apartment by the arm when it was all his fault I'd left, anyway.

He didn't even bother to knock on the door when he finally returned, just flung it open and marched in. His arms were folded across his chest, his jaw set— if I'd been less furious, I would've cringed, but my brain was obscured in red fog at the moment. "So, why don't you explain what the hell's been goin' through your head lately, princess?" he demanded, his tone flat and dangerous.

"I'm not listening to your shit," I snarled, determined not to stick around long enough to let him bawl me out, and I tried to shove past him through the doorway— only to be stopped with a resounding smack.

"Oh yes, you are," he said, taking me by the shoulders and steering me towards the bed, which I flung myself onto. "You've already landed your ass into more trouble than you can imagine without pullin' another disappearing act."

"You could've let me at least say goodbye to him!"

His eyes narrowed. "When I find my kid sister surrounded by bottles with some thirty-year-old pedo, after she's been gone for days without tellin' anyone, the only thing she's gonna be sayin' goodbye to is the ability to sit comfortably."

Overcome by wild rage, I picked up the Bible on my nightstand and hurled it at him, and if he weren't so damn good at dodging, it would've struck him straight in the forehead— it harmlessly whacked the wall instead, and in the next moment he'd stood me up, took my arm in an iron grip, and smacked me so hard I yelped.

"Okay," he said sharply, "that's it. You've obviously lost your goddamn mind, and if you want to act like a toddler, I'll treat you like one."

"You'll treat me like a toddler no matter what I fuckin' do, so why not—"

The next smack was even worse, if that was possible. "Watch your mouth, because I got no patience right now. You wanna tell me how much you've screwed up in the past forty-eight hours, or should I do the honors?"

When I remained stubbornly silent, trying to kill him with my glare, he did decide to do the honors. "You don't run away from me. No matter how pissed you are, you _never_ get to run away from me and make me tear apart this entire city to find you. You don't decide to move into your grown boyfriend's apartment and get wasted with him there. And now you're throwin' shit 'cause you didn't want to go home?"

"Have you ever thought that if you weren't such an controlling bastard, I might be more willin' to?" I suggested sweetly— and shouldn't have, because his hand crashed down _again_. Dammit, soon enough I wasn't going to have a rear end, at the rate he was whaling on me. "Tim! Quit it!"

"I'm not holdin' a debate about this," he snapped, sitting down on the bed. "Get over here. You know you have it coming."

"Not when I'm almost an adult," I said through gritted teeth, in one last attempt to save face. "You don't really think you're gonna—"

"I think you're a little girl in desperate need of a reality check," he cut off. "I think you could've been raped or killed by that creep, and I wouldn't even know where the hell to look for your body. I think you have no idea how serious your actions were, but you're about to get a pretty good idea."

"Ma wouldn't dare lick me for this. She told me the most important thing for a woman is to find a man to look after her."

"I don't give a shit what Ma told you," he said the second I closed my mouth. " _I_ look after you now, and what I say goes. I'm the only man you need at the ripe old age of fifteen."

"But he _loves_ me."

"No guy old enough to be your dad loves a teenage girl like that," he insisted. "Much less tries to get her drunk and lets her crash in his apartment. The fact that you don't understand that yet is just convincing me more that you need a lickin' to put your head back on straight, so _come here_. I ain't tellin' you again."

I was all set to argue even more, but the familiar sternness made me put on my fiercest scowl and walk over to him, where he pointed at his lap. All right, maybe I did feel a little bad about making him worry, but John still didn't deserve to be smeared like this. (There was a voice in my mind telling me that okay, maybe something was a little off about him not being able to find a girlfriend his own age, but I told it to shut up. John just realized how mature I was— unlike Tim, who always had to rub it in that I was his _baby_ sister.)

Draped over his knee, I braced myself for the first smack to fall— except it didn't. Instead, to my horror, he grabbed the end of my skirt and flipped it up, exposing my backside to all and sundry.

"Tim!" I shrieked, pitch high enough to break glass. "What are you doing? Tiiiiim!"

"Don't worry, nobody's gonna see you," he said flatly. "And what I'm _doing_ is makin' sure you remember this next time you want to land yourself on the eleven o'clock news."

"And you call John a perv?" I demanded with a hot blush, trying to kick myself off his lap, but it was a futile effort. "You fucking—"

"Believe me, you'd enjoy the fun kind of lickin' a hell of a lot more than you're about to enjoy this one. I can live with you being embarrassed, but I'm a lot less eager to live with you being dead."

My stomach swooped with those words, but I didn't spend long waiting in dread, because then his hand came down and I yelled like I'd just been stabbed. "Maybe you think this is bad," he started, beginning to rain down swats at a steady tempo, "but believe me, how you're feeling is _nothing_ compared to how I felt when you went missing. And compared to how both of us would feel if you'd been raped over there, or been sick from the alcohol? Absolutely _nothing_."

Well, I was finding that hard to believe, because this was shaping up to be the worst licking I'd ever had from him— he made sure to cover every inch of my sorry ass, cracking down a new blow every time the sting from the first one receded. I'd sworn not to give him the satisfaction of tears and stubbornly outlast him, but the second one brought moisture to my eyes, and by the fifth I already had tears trailing down my face. It wasn't even the pain, or the shame of being spanked like a kid after John had called me a woman— I could practically feel the tension in his body with each harsh swat.

"I _won't_ do it again, I promise," I choked out after a particularly hard flurry near my thighs. All right, all right, I gave in fast, my rage fizzling out like a wet firecracker— it was getting harder and harder to stay defiant with every passing second. "I'm sorry!"

"Do what?" he asked, unmoved. "Run away because you're havin' a temper tantrum? Call me a controlling bastard all you want, but I was _right_ — you got no business hanging 'round a pervert like that. Not even bother to pick up the damn phone and tell me where you are? Get drunk and high off your ass with your new boyfriend? Throw a _Bible_ at me 'cause you're pitchin' a fit about me not lettin' you stay there? You're gonna have to be more specific."

"All of it?"

"That's a good start," he agreed, but his pace didn't slow. "I guess I haven't made this clear enough, but you're gonna end up in the exact same position whenever you do something dangerous— over my knee— no matter how old you are. Safety is _not_ negotiable."

I burst into tears— and now that the dam was broken, I buried my face in the comforter, making a wet splotch. The furious slap of his palm, over and over again, _hurt_. Realizing, with a sudden jolt, that John wasn't all that different from some of my worse stepdads _hurt_. Feeling the full weight of Tim's fear for me _hurt_. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, Tim."

"I hate this," he said, and the crack in his voice was unbearable. "You think I'm enjoying myself here? I hate all of it, but I'd rather make you cry now than cry at your grave."

Then the next few moments were a blur; a last couple of hard swats, and it was finally over. He pulled my skirt back down while I gasped and sputtered; just as quickly, he flipped me up to sit in his lap, and that was when I noticed, like a sword to the gut, the tears in his eyes.

That, more than anything, was my undoing— I slammed my face into his chest as he wrapped his arms around me, holding me close, because he _still_ loved me in spite of how terribly I'd treated him. "I don't wanna move in with John!" I wailed, drenching his shirt with snot and tears. "Or Ma an' Curly an'... I dunno who it is now. Don't kick me out!"

"No, baby," he shushed. "You're stuck with me, like it or not. I never said you could only live here if you behave yourself... you're just gonna find it a lot more pleasant if you behave yourself."

I just clung to him, sobbing. "Angel, when I couldn't find you anywhere... fuck, that was a nightmare," he murmured, reaching up to stroke my horribly mussed hair. "I don't ever want to have to do this again."

"You won't," I said, though I full well knew this wasn't going to be my last licking. "I didn't _mean_ it. Any of it."

"I know you didn't," he soothed. "You're a good girl, even when you make dumb mistakes— but it's my job to set the rules, and punish you when you break them. Even if you think I'm doin' it for kicks, I'd rather be too strict than sit back while you get yourself into serious trouble."

"John's kind of a prick, huh?" I hiccupped.

"A huge one," he said firmly. "He's older than I am, Angel. I've met his type, and he ain't got good intentions. Christ, my heart stopped when I saw you drinking 'round him." He paused to take my face in his hands. " _I_ love you. _I_ don't want to see you hurt."

That sparked a fresh burst of tears, his forgiveness affecting me even more than his disappointment. He let me get it all out, my body racked with sobs, until I finally just slumped against him, too tired to move. I'd been so stupid, pretending that I didn't need or want my brother anymore— _so_ stupid. "Sorry about the Bible," I muttered.

He flicked my nose. "Next time you want to avoid a come-to-Jesus meeting between my hand and your ass, try to avoid throwing that particular book at me, okay?"

I wasn't too eager for a repeat performance, so I hurriedly nodded and rested my head on his shoulder.

* * *

Sprawled out on my bed, some lingering soreness still in my backside, I was expecting to feel indignant any minute now— after all, I'd been ripped away from my boyfriend's apartment, returned home, and then turned over Tim's knee and very soundly spanked— but instead, all I felt was the clingy urge to be curled up to my brother again. Reassured that yes, even though I'd been terrible and worried him beyond belief and almost gotten myself killed, he still cherished me and still thought I was good, for what was probably the thousandth time that day.

As I'd wished it, no one other than him pushed open the door, bathing the room in light for a moment— he came over to the bed and sat down on the edge. "You all right, Angel?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," I muttered, and he started to idly run his fingers through my hair.

"You really scared me, the past couple of days," he admitted, his voice rough and raw. "I don't want to ever have to worry about you like that again, Angel, you takin' those kinds of chances with your life. Promise me."

"Promise," I said, incapable of blinking back the tears that sprung to my eyes. Then— "you still mad?" I asked, the words catching in my throat. I didn't know how I could stand it if he were, if he secretly didn't want to forgive me just yet.

"No," he exhaled, and then he scooped me up into his arms, where I collapsed into his chest. "Christ, baby, I'm not. I wasn't mad, I was fuckin' terrified, the whole time. I love you so much, you can't imagine."

I was starting to cry a little again in spite of myself, sniffling into his shirt. "I'm so awful."

"Shhh, shhh," he said, kissing my forehead. "Don't cry anymore, you'll make yourself sick. Listen to me, there's nothing awful 'bout _you_ , all right? Nothing. You've been punished and it's over now. I just want you to remember how important you are to me. And pick someone your own age next time, like, I dunno, what's his name. Curly's friend. Ponyboy? He's a nice kid. Who's not thirty. My standards are pretty low at this point."

My tears slowed as he held me against his chest and I started to drift off to sleep, my eyelids drooping low after the day I'd had. "Come on, you're exhausted," he murmured, gently pushing my head back onto the pillow and smoothing the blanket over me. "Shh. Clean slate from here, okay?"

Nobody ever said anything like that to me— not my ma, definitely never any of my stepfathers— but from Tim, I could believe it. He'd proven as much.


End file.
